


Sailor's Warning

by DaughterofProspero



Category: SHAKESPEARE William - Works, Twelfth Night - Shakespeare
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Loneliness, M/M, Poetry, Self-Pity, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-28 14:32:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7644670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaughterofProspero/pseuds/DaughterofProspero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Red sky at night, sailor's delight;<br/>Red sky in the morning, sailor's warning."</p>
<p>He didn't see it then, but looking back Antonio remembers the countless red dawns he has weathered. One harsher than others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sailor's Warning

Red sky in the morning, and storm comes by day;  
I’m slave to the waves that have swept me away.  
A sailor, a lover, an answer unsought,  
Only a memory better forgot.

Cold was the man that I pulled from the bay,  
Warm were the sheets on the bed that he lay,  
Young was this stranger for whom I still pray,  
Old is this story, my shameful cliché 

Blue were his eyes: simple, sweet, crystalline,  
Red were his lips raw with sunlight and brine,  
Lies did he feed me of desperate design,  
True is my guilt for I wish he were mine.

Red sky in the morning, and storm comes by day;  
I’m slave to the waves that have swept me away.  
A sailor, a lover, an answer unsought,  
Only a memory better forgot.

Slow was his healing, still, days went so fast,  
Quick, too, the murky accounts of his past,  
Joy found him swiftly, my man on a mast,  
Woe my companion, my first and my last.

Red sky in the morning, and storm comes by day;  
I’m slave to the waves that have swept me away.  
A sailor, a lover, an answer unsought,  
Only a memory better forgot.

Bless’d be his future, his family, his home,  
Curs’d be his foes wheresoever they roam,  
Short is my chapter and long is his tome  
Rest may I find in the reddening gloam.

Red sky in the morning and storm came by day;  
Slave to the waves that had swept him away.  
Nobleman, brother, an answer long sought,  
Only a memory never forgot.

Red sky in the morning, and storm comes by day;  
I’m slave to the waves that have swept me away.  
A sailor, a lover, an answer unsought,  
Only a memory better forgot.

Only a memory,  
Memory,  
Memory...  
Only a memory better forgot.

**Author's Note:**

> *When I'm writing straight poetry I'm a real stickler for matching syllable counts in each line/couplet/what-have-you but because this is meant to be a song, it might not read as smoothly, as, say, that villanelle I posted back in January or something.  
> For even more Antonio feels, check out my other Twelfth Night piece: Smiling at Grief. http://archiveofourown.org/works/5768584   
> Slowly but surely I'm building a collection of songs about various Shakespeare characters. I don't have tunes yet, nowhere near recording them or anything. Just a bunch of lyrics. Lyrics that double as poems. This seems as good a place to share them as any. 
> 
> Thanks for reading :)


End file.
